My new toy...

Well, it's been a while since I posted, and there's been a bit happening during that time. First and foremost, John's younger brother, Jamie got married. The wedding was held in a beautiful old church with gorgeous stained glass windows (St Mary's at Kangaroo Point I believe), and the reception was at Victoria Park Golf Club. It was a lovely day enjoyed by all who attended, and Ally made an absolutely glowing bride. I've got some photos that I took from the day (and mostly from the reception) that I will be editing so that I can give them to Jamie and Ally. I'll post them later.

Secondly, our house in Ipswich is now officially in our possession, and we had our tenants move in on Friday. We've also had our final inspection for our house in Melbourne, and it shouldn't be too long now before it's 'ours' as well.

And thirdly - I believe the most exciting - I bought a new toy.



My long-awaited digital SLR camera, a Nikon D90! I have researched these babies for so long, and 'narrowed' it down to about 5 or 6 difference choices! I even got to the point where I was dreaming about cameras and photography every night! In the end it was a toss-up between the Canon 50D and the Nikon D90. When I physically picked up the Canon it was just too big for my hands, and I knew that no matter how good the camera was, if it was too big for me it would never feel right. So I thought and thought and thought some more (as those who know John and I would no doubt expect) and decided on the Nikon D90. So far I am sooo happy with it - this little 'photographer' has now got some learning to do to bring her skills in line with those of the camera!

I've been playing with it this weekend - I took it to John's rugby game Saturday arvo (I had bought the camera Saturday morning) and took a few shots. I was then experimenting with it in the yard and the neighbour's yard this afternoon. Here are a couple of my favourite shots so far (which are unedited so far). You can click on the image to see a larger version if you want to.

(I just like the clarify of this one - one of the first shots I took)







This one may not look fantastic, but she's quite difficult to take photos of so I was happy with this one (considering it was taken at night-time inside):





And a few 'macro' type shots that I was playing with this afternoon, running around the neighbourhood with a water spray bottle!







My absolute favourite shot so far (taken of Linda's gerbera's across the road):



Not too much scrapping happening lately, with last weekend taken up with travel and the wedding, and this weekend has been a mishmash of camera buying and playing, doing our filing that had built up a little and catching up on some sleep. We also had Friday night bare-foot bowls with the guys from work which was actually a lot of fun.

I've got a weekend workshop with Steve Rutherford next Saturday and Sunday and I'm so excited (hence the bringing forward of the 'birthday present' camera to now). Creative Shots (the camera club I belong to) has arranged for him to come to Mackay and do a workshop for us, which should be a lot of fun and a HUGE learning experience for me.

Excellent service!

I placed an order for a heap of AC albums (and of course some other goodies!) from an online store at the end of June, with the intention of using one particular album for a specific purpose (and that purpose has a deadline). It took that store over 5 weeks to tell me that all but one of those albums was out of stock with their supplier, and they couldn't supply them to me. By the time I found out (after sending a number of emails) they had already sent my parcel with my one album in it, along with the other bits and pieces that Fiona and I ordered. I was so disappointed that it took so long to tell me, as I now had paid postage for only a small order, and still had to source the 'required' album elsewhere.

I found the album at Scrap Therapy - along with all the other albums I had ordered, AND cool 12x12 AC inserts that are actually 6- 4x6 pockets. The best part - Leanne called me within about an hour to tell me that everything was in stock, the order had been packed and was on its way to the post office. This was about lunch-time on Tuesday, and my parcel arrived today. Now that's service! Very happy with Scrap Therapy and will definitely be using them again!

I think good service deserves recognition, so there's mine!

On a side note, Mum and Dad are coming up to Mackay to visit John and I this weekend, and Na is probably coming with them. Can't wait to see them, as they don't come up much anymore now that Dad works closer to home (rather than up this way). I'm using my 'Masterchef' skills (ha!) to cook them dinner. With Mum and Na's super-sensitive palates (poor babies) I think boiled potatoes and grilled chicken might be in order! (Just kidding guys, but I know how much you don't like 'spicy' food!)

Hopefully some more pages coming soon, or maybe once I put my new albums to use cleaning up some of my old ones, I'll take the opportunity and scan in some older pages.